


Three Takes

by ayatsujik



Series: The Exorcist Chronicles [3]
Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-27 07:59:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12577260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayatsujik/pseuds/ayatsujik
Summary: A progression of episodes from Natori Shuuichi's love (or lack thereof) life, from high school to the present. Mild angst and poetry and happy ending included.





	Three Takes

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. For my wonderful fan-in-crime, @killjoyras - a v.v.v.happy birthday! The alternate title for you being "All Natori's Men" or "Three Times Natori Got ちゅ'ed" (ahaha)
> 
> 2\. No real spoilers, but you'll need to read the Toukanya story in manga chapter 80 to know who Yorishima is, as well as Natori's backstory (manga special #17, anime season 4 #8).
> 
> 3\. This is a standalone, but the Natori/Natsume established relationship in part III is an extension of what happens in [You Don't Say](archiveofourown.org/works/12436131), and its prequel, [Waxing Moon (Thirteenth Night)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12185040), if you want the how-they-get-together part of the story.
> 
> 4\. *too lazy to research youkai compendia to write attack scenes sorry*

 

言葉にできない  
想いばかりが  
この辺で暴れて  
そのうち朽ちて

置いてけぼりならいいのに  
囲まれたまま逃げもできない  
ここまで来て  
何が欲しいの  
この手は

there are no words  
for all the desires  
raging in these parts  
to crumble in time

if they would just leave me behind  
still I'm surrounded with no escape  
having made it this far  
what yearnings are in  
these hands of mine

\-- Cocco, "Fine Weather for Love" 「愛うらら」 

 

 

I.

Midway through Natori's third year of high school, they exorcised a great youkai together. Somehow it had gone feral in its long captivity, losing all ability to communicate. It broke through the seal of its prison, which had weakened with the passing decades, and went rampaging far from the cave that had been its cage.

History tended to be variations on a theme. As before, exorcising the youkai had eluded several of their colleagues. Neither he nor Seiji had been able to resist the challenge of succeeding where the adults had failed. They'd set out on their missions individually. Yet again, as luck would have it, they'd run across each other in the forest where their target had last been spotted. This had prompted a not-argument about who was better equipped for the job (Seiji, predictably and annoyingly, had mostly laughed).

Whereupon their supposed prey had attacked them, and they'd been forced to cooperate, like it or not.

It took all their focus to avoid its onslaught while trying to bring it down. The youkai had blade-like claws on the ends of multiple arms, which it wielded like a demonic version of the thousand-hand Kannon in battle. Seiji fired his magic arrows; Natori hurled a few powerful charms. Their joint assault managed to weaken it significantly, but it remained unvanquished, and they were running out of physical ammunition. Natori thought about summoning Urihime, but decided against it; the chances of her being able to restrain this monster were slim, and he didn't want to see her needlessly injured. 

Then one of its arms slammed Seiji from behind. He staggered, dropping his bow, and came into strike range of another arm.

Natori, lunging forward, pushed him away. A claw slashed a trail of pain across his right cheek. Blood seeped out.

He didn't have time to think about it. The youkai, by great good fortune, had blundered into the magic circle he'd earlier prepared. Seiji, back on his feet, had also seen this, and was already invoking a binding spell. Crackling arcs of spirit energy snapped into a web around the creature, which screeched, struggling wildly. 

They'd both brought sealing vessels, but it was clear they weren't going to be able to use them. A complete exorcism would be necessary.

Their eyes met, from either side of the circle, and they chanted the incantation of banishment in unison, their voices low and tense.

There was an un-human scream, a flash of light, and a low, rushing noise that accompanied the rapid disintegration of spirit material into nothingness.

Natori gripped his knees, panting, and sank onto the leaf-strewn ground. His cheek burned. He braced his hands on either side of his body, clenching fistfuls of the moss underneath him, and shut his eyes.

It felt like a close call. It had, in fact, been a close call.

"Shuuichi-san," he heard Seiji say, as if from far away.

There was a sudden pressure on his legs.

His eyes flew open to the unprecedented sight of his fellow school uniform-wearing exorcist sitting on his thighs. Seiji was looking down at him, arms crossed, eyes dark, wearing an expression he'd never seen before. Sunlight glinted off the brass buttons on his gakuran jacket.

"What are you -" Natori began.

He was cut off by Seiji's fingers, steel-like, seizing his chin. His face loomed closer. In the next instant, his tongue slid over Natori's cheek.

Hot and damp. Once, then twice. Firm, deliberate strokes.

Natori froze, his mind a searing blank. He was vaguely aware his mouth had fallen open, and that he was just staring. At Seiji.

Who smirked, and leaned down to kiss him.

Seiji was gripping his shoulders for support, pressing their torsos and groins flush against each other. His dark hair fell over Natori's face in long, silky strands, shampoo-fragrant. Natori, through the frenzied pounding of his heart, could feel the firmness of the warm body covering his own. There were muscles under that pale, pale skin, belying their owner's slim frame.

It was a full, hard kiss. He hadn't managed to close his mouth in time. His own blood, on Seiji's tongue, tasted of salt and metal.

He dimly registered Seiji's arousal, a sensation that flicked the switch of memory. It connected to an exchange that had taken place a few months ago, at an professional gathering they'd both attended.

Where Seiji had said, out of the blue, /I'm good with men too, you know./ As if he'd been talking about the weather.

Natori, taken aback, had found no way to respond. He'd considered the ramifications of this statement, how much its short string of syllables suggested. His first instinct had been to block it out: he didn't want to pursue anything it implied, no matter if it was - no, _especially_  because it was Seiji.

He'd recovered himself and shrugged. /It's none of my business. Do whatever you want./

Seiji had looked at him thoughtfully. Then he'd laughed, the sound silvery and clear.

/Don't regret saying that, Shuuichi-san./

(So this really was what he'd meant, then?)

Seiji pulled away, releasing his grip. He sat back on Natori's legs and ran the tip of his tongue over his lips, uncannily cat-like.

The shackles of shock broke. Natori's limbs revived, tingling ferociously. He gave Seiji a shove so hard that the other boy almost fell as he stumbled away.

Natori spat on the grass, and scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. Unfortunately, the sensation of Seiji's mouth and tongue persisted, along with the stubborn ghost of his body's weight. He'd need soap for all that, probably.

Even amidst the confused clamour of his thoughts, he couldn't suppress a streak of anxiety. Was it possible that Seiji had somehow been affected by the lizard on his skin? If not now, then later? Normal contact produced no discernible effects, but if someone did something like _that_? 

He recalled the gentle tones of his unofficial mentor's voice, trying to persuade him that, as Natori already knew, and as far as Takuma could tell, it didn't look like his curse posed any danger to others. Still the shadow of disquiet lingered, shot through with frustration.

It was useless to worry. There was no evidence he needed to. Even if there had been, it wasn't like he would know what to do about it.

"Disgusting," he muttered, unsure of who or what the epithet was aimed at - Seiji, himself, or the way he was feeling now. His voice was icy; his cheeks were flushed. 

"Oh? I gave you my best kiss, Shuuichi-san. How sad that you didn't like it."

Seiji didn't sound in the least upset, although he sighed in affected regret as he stood up, pushing his hair out of his eyes. He'd acquired an evaluative air, as if assessing Natori's reaction to his stunt.

Another experiment, Natori thought darkly. One in which he'd been the unconsenting subject. Fury flashed, snuffed out in the next instant. He reached for a mask of calm, which he donned with more ease than he'd expected, and got to his feet, brushing bits of dead leaves off his hands and trousers.

There was no sense in asking nettles not to sting. Seiji trafficked in turning the emotions which others displayed into sources of personal amusement. Beyond that, there wasn't any point denying what he'd suspected about himself for some time now. But he'd be damned if he let himself be toyed with any further, regardless of whatever his body claimed it wanted.

The pain had faded to a dull throb, but there was an ooze down his cheek. Another trickle of blood, replacing what Seiji's ministrations had removed. He fished in the pocket of his school blazer for his handkerchief and jammed it to his face.

"Or perhaps you're upset I took your first, too?"

He didn't dignify that with a reply. Seiji smiled, his lips set in the slight, opaque curve that Natori wished he wasn't so familiar with.

"I'm going home," he said shortly. 

"I was going to invite you to my place to get that wound treated, actually," Seiji said, lightly. "But if you'd rather not, I understand."

He tipped his head to one side, still smiling.

"Don't damage that nice face on my account, Shuuichi-san."

Natori turned on his heel and stalked off, feeling Seiji's gaze follow him.

It didn't matter, he told himself. It didn't have to. A cut this shallow didn't leave a scar.

 

II.

Natori had just turned old enough to drink when he struck up an odd acquaintance with a new kind of exorcist. He was the head of a family who, Takuma said, was almost as notorious as the main house of the Matoba clan. Certainly he was even more contemptuous than the latter of professional gatherings. They'd first met when Nanase had casually introduced him at one of the rare meetings he'd seen fit to attend in person.

/So it's true the Natori are back in business. Just you, eh?/ The man had regarded Natori with a keen, curious gaze, sizing him up in a way that assessed without judging. Natori's interest had been instantly piqued.

/If I may ever be of service,/ he'd said politely. Yorishima's only reply had been a curt nod.

Somehow, to Natori, it felt more of an approbation than a friendly answer would have been.

It was a queer attraction, stemming from how unlike this man was from anyone else he'd met thus far. All year round he draped his tall, wiry frame in dark, well-tailored kimono, and wore his left arm bandaged in a sling, which gave him a forbidding air. He brimmed with a murky, restless sort of energy. His personal aura was shot through with disaffection and a tinge of weariness, as if he'd been around too long to want to deal with most things. There were even rumours that his family might be pulling out of the business, despite the considerable power they retained.

Yorishima, in fact, was the grumpiest old man who'd ever inhabited a body that appeared to be in its early thirties. No one could name its exact age, and there were whispers and mutters about the reason why. Mixed blood, the popular theory ran. Half-youkai. The suspect progeny of a union that would never have ended well. Natori knew that this hypothesis came from the Matoba's network of sources. Nanase had hinted as much, her smile razor-edged. But a factual story remained elusive. 

Then there was that arm of his. As with Yorishima's real age, nobody, not even the Matoba, could explain it with any certainty.

Most people didn't approach Yorishima without good reason to. He didn't speak much, and when he did, his vaguely feline eyes tended to glint and his thin mouth to growl. But he permitted Natori to make conversation, and what little he said in response was helpful. A tip-off about a job. A reference to a useful manual. A harsh but accurate critique of a particular technique. Natori appreciated how unfailingly he cut straight to the point, dispensing with the niceties and small talk that most of their colleagues - with the possible exception of Seiji - deemed necessary to professional interaction. 

Once, Yorishima invited him over to his place. /I'm clearing out my library, and some of the books I no longer have any use for might interest you,/ he'd said. /Take whatever you want, if so./ Natori, pleased and surprised, had acquiesced without hesitation.

The Yorishima mansion, deep in the woods, reminded him of his family's main house. It, too, crackled with spirit barriers and shadows. It also had a large study lined with bookcases and expensive wooden furniture, which resembled the one his grandfather had used. Engrossed in looking over its rows of neatly shelved texts, he'd jumped when Yorishima, standing next to him, suddenly spoke.

/It makes you feel gross, doesn't it./ He nodded at Natori's arm.

Natori looked: his spirit parasite had crawled out onto the skin there, wrapping itself around his elbow in a black, sinuous curl.

/Can't find a way to exorcise it, can you./ As before, it wasn't a question.

Startled and wary, he didn't reply. Instead, he flicked his eyes up to the serious, serene look on Yorishima's face. Then he shifted it to the arm in the sling. Yorishima followed his gaze, and twitched a corner of his mouth up.

/You're not the only one who lives with troublesome youkai in this line of work, Natori./

Yorishima brushed past him as he headed for the door, and Natori felt the light touch of a large, cool hand on his head, briefly ruffling his hair. It was an almost throwaway gesture that spoke of understanding, silent and unexpected. It was so unlike Yorishima that Natori was strangely, deeply moved.

He exhaled slowly, aware that the mental weight of the lizard had eased. Not even Takuma's reassurances had managed that. 

Following that first visit, he made a point of paying more. Not so frequently as to be regular, but often enough to be noticed. In time their interactions acquired a particular bent. No matter how much Yorishima complained about Natori's drop-ins, he never stopped them from happening. It would have been easy for him to do so, in a number of ways, magical or otherwise. But he never did. Natori didn't know why, but that suited him fine. 

They shared space like carp in a pond. Not too shallow, not too deep in the water. Sliding past each other, heading in their own directions after the brief brush of contact.  

"Why are you hanging around my house  _again_ , you pest?"

Today Yorishima had allowed Natori through the gate and the front door, as far as the space of the genkan, but he'd made no move to lead them any further inside. The sharp lines of his face were, as usual, pulled into a scowl; his voice dripped with irritation.

Natori leaned against the wall of the entryway, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He smiled: the airy, twinkling smile that he'd developed two years into his second career outside of exorcism. It had taken him a few productions to get the hang of it, but now he summoned it freely, like another kind of shiki.

A well-crafted smile, he'd learned, made the easiest and most effective of masks. He suspected Seiji thought similarly. 

"I figured you would be home today, Yorishima-san."

"And?"

"And you are, luckily for me. It's a bit of a trip to get here from where I live now."

Yorishima knit his brows, making them into a V of annoyance. "What the hell do you want?"

"I think you know."

A snort. Yorishima adjusted the arm in the sling and sized him up, coolly. "Have you been hanging out with Matoba again?" he asked. "Our shiki say he's plotting something for when he takes over as clan head. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Don't worry, I haven't seen him for quite some time," Natori replied, cheerfully. "Not as often as I've seen you, certainly."

Another snort, and a shake of the head. "You need friends."

"You're not one of them, Yorishima-san?"

Yorishima raised a brow, and stepped forward. He braced his right hand on the wall that Natori was leaning against, bringing their faces a mere hands'-width apart.

"Do you know what this is?"

"I should be asking you that, I think." Natori turned up the wattage of his smile. "Seeing as how you were the one who started it, after all."

"Heh." Yorishima's own smile was faint and sardonic. "I suppose you have a point."

"I'm glad you think so."

"You're so lonely anyone would pity you, brat."

"I could say the same thing about you, Yorishima-san." Natori reached out as he spoke, putting a deliberate hand on the arm in the sling. Their gazes locked. Yorishima tensed, his eyes narrowing into a glare.

"You need to learn when to shut up, Natori," he said. Then he closed the space between them. His lips were cold and dry. His bandaged arm, lodged against Natori's chest, radiated a strange, unsettling warmth.

Youkai, Natori thought. He didn't have any leads into the truth of what those bandages sealed, and he knew he might never find out. Not directly, at any rate. He burned with questions that he knew better than to ask. Yorishima didn't reveal anything except according to his own time and inclination.

At present, moreover, there were other things he wanted to uncover. Natori broke the kiss, and reached out to grip Yorishima's shoulders. He shifted them so their positions were reversed, and pressed him into the wall, grinding their pelvises together. His hand sought entrance into the folds of his robes; the skin there was a normal temperature, and soft, under his fingers.

"Damn horny brat," Yorishima muttered, his voice rough. But he made no move to stop him.

"I'm grateful for the opportunity to learn," Natori said, and laughed at the expletive hurled in his general direction.

 

III.

His sense of life before Natsume was getting hazy. Memory and logic protested, demonstrating how it had been a mere two years, give or take some months, since their first encounter. But even that knowledge felt unreal. It all did, sometimes. Every time he had a day off that they could spend together. Every time Natsume visited a place he lived in, warming it with the simple fact of his presence.

Right now, when he was looking at Natsume seated on a cushion at the low table in his apartment's living room. His head was bent over a textbook in preparation for a mock exam next week. Whatever he was reading had him nibbling the end of his pen. In an extremely distracting way. It was impossible not to watch the flash of his white teeth as they bit down on the pen's thin black stem. The slight movements in his slender throat as he hummed to himself, softly and tunelessly. The way he was resting his cheek on the backs of his fingers. He'd pushed his hair behind his ears; soon he'd need to get it cut. His delicate brows were creased.

Natori, stretched out on the sofa, heaved a sigh. He put down the new script he'd been trying to learn and swung his legs into a sitting position.

"What are you frowning about?" he inquired, leaning forward and sticking his head over Natsume's shoulder to peer at his reading material.

"Yargh," Natsume yelped, dropping his pen. "Don't do that!"

"Don't do what?"

"Sneak up on me when I'm studying, obviously." Natsume shot him an unconvincing glare.

"I can't help it if you're distracting me from my work," Natori said, unruffled. "Might I be of any assistance?"

"No, I'm fine," Natsume replied, a touch defensively. "Just trying to memorise classical poems and their meanings, that's all."

"I remember doing that too!" Natori brightened up. "How nostalgic. Should I test you? I was good at this, you know."

"...Just do your own work, please."

"You've already broken my focus," Natori said calmly. He shifted off the sofa and plopped down beside Natsume, radiating unapologetic sparkles. Their shoulders grazed as he reached for the textbook.

"Here, let me see. Which poems? Oh, the _Kokinshū_? That's a good one."

" _Natori-san,_ " Natsume gritted out, tugging the textbook away.

Natori looked at him. Natsume stared down at the book's pages in a manner which suggested he wasn't reading them. A streak of pink had stained his pale cheek, and something in the stiff way he was sitting made Natori want to smile.

"Shall we take a break?" he gently suggested. "It might be time for one."

"Why are you always like this?" Natsume mumbled, aiming another failure of a scowl at him.

"Like what?" Natori asked, not expecting an answer. He propped an elbow on the table, cradling his chin in the upturned palm of his hand, and quirked a corner of his mouth. Having accomplished this, he ran the fingers of his other hand over the colour in Natsume's face, watching it darken. Then he gave in to the smile tugging at his lips, the kind he hadn't needed to learn. Until relatively recently it had been the most infrequent of visitors. 

 _Adorable_ was a strange word, one he'd had no prior reason to apply to anyone. He was learning to enjoy the emotions associated with it, some familiar and some not. He didn't worry any less about Natsume's terrible heirloom, and he continued to hover between resignation and exasperation about his penchant for risk-taking. But he'd never known one could feel affection to a point where its expression became irrepressible, or that just looking at someone could make the rest of the world fade away.

Caught up in musing, he missed the determined look that had crossed Natsume's face, the one which said he'd made up his mind to do something.

Consequently, he wasn't prepared for Natsume to reach over and push him back against the sofa.

Natori blinked, his eyes widening when the same Natsume proceeded to straddle his thighs. Not quite believing this chain of events, he opened his mouth to ask if everything was all right. He didn't get that far; the words were lost when Natsume grabbed his collar, leaning down to initiate the kind of kiss that Natori had been contemplating when, if ever, would be the right moment to try.

Natsume's mouth, though hesitant, was insistent nonetheless. He braced his hands on Natori's shoulders as the kiss deepened.

Clearly, Natori thought, as coherently as possible, he hadn't needed to worry so much about not rushing this part of their relationship. He felt a swell of wry pleasure: Natsume never failed to surprise, no matter how well he imagined he knew him. He hadn't factored in how cliches about adolescence existed for a reason, even if each adolescent had particular ways and times of manifesting them. His own experiences in that area hadn't been so long ago, had they?

He briefly considered holding back. Reason whispered that, whatever the circumstances, it was always better to go slow. Just in case. Reason had no way of stopping his arm from snaking around the small of Natsume's back, drawing them closer. Or his other hand from running along the shell of his ear and the nape of his neck, seeking the nerves he knew lay underneath, feeling the tremors that passed through Natsume's body with satisfaction. He gradually let his fingers travel down to Natsume's trousers, tracing the curve of his hip, moving up to his belt -

Déjà vu hit him, then, in a relentless rush of memory.

/He was eighteen, again, catching his breath on the forest floor, his right cheek a slash of pain. And Seiji was there. Seiji, who'd also sat on his legs like this, and licked his face, before kissing him in the same way -/

Natori twitched, involuntarily, and pushed Natsume away, his limbs reacting before his mind could catch up.

"Shuuichi-san? Shuuichi-san!"

It was a different voice saying his name. This one, lighter and startled, returned him to the present. Natori blinked, focusing on another pale face. Its lovely, fine-cut features brimmed with concern. It had short, tawny hair and eyes he'd seen shade across the spectrum of brown to gold, depending on their owner's mood.

He exhaled harshly, relieved and unsettled all at once.

"What's wrong?" Natsume asked, sitting back on his legs and studying him worriedly.

"Nothing," Natori said, defaulting to untruth. "It's nothing. I'm sorry, Takashi."

The recollection of his first kiss left a bewildering mental aftertaste, a mix of doubt and self-loathing and consternation. It was joined by an image of Yorishima's face, cynical yet intent, flickering across his mind's eye. He hadn't thought about any of this for months, for years. He hadn't realised how much these things were still with him, more bitter than sweet. The ghosts of salt and metal in his mouth. The pointless guilt about connections he hadn't wanted to make, and wouldn't have known how to, in any case.

Natsume's gaze was serious and searching. Natori averted his eyes; he knew he hadn't fooled him in the slightest.

"I'm sorry," he said again, at a loss about how to apologise for things he had no intention of explaining. Not now, maybe never. He bit his lip, intensely annoyed with himself, and seized by a sharp, icy fear that he'd hurt him - this boy, this most precious and tender and vital of people, the very one he wanted to protect. Had he somehow made him feel rejected, for no reason other than that he, Natori, was still stumbling over his own sorry past?

He started to speak, and realised that his hands were clenching fistfuls of Natsume's sweater, as if to prevent him from getting up. Or perhaps it was really to prevent himself from pushing him away again.

A pair of warm, slender hands cupped his face. Natsume stroked a thumb across his right cheek, the same one Seiji had licked blood off.

Natori froze, gripped by an unreasonable alarm that his mind had been read. But it was impossible for Natsume to know anything about that history. Of course. The lizard that roamed his skin must have settled there. Probably. Maybe he needed to worry more about Natsume touching something that ultimately remained an unknown. Maybe he'd been so wrapped up in their mutual attraction that he'd forgotten his responsibilities as an adult. Maybe his initial misgivings about why they shouldn't have let things come this far were right, after all -

Natsume leaned down and kissed his forehead, his lips feather-soft. It was a gesture so gentle and so unexpected that Natori faltered.

"No need to apologise," he murmured. "It's all right, Shuuichi-san. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I'm just happy you're here, now. With -" he broke off and coughed, looking embarrassed, but continued. "With me."

Hearing this sent a lump into his throat. The backs of his eyes burned with a sudden, dangerous warmth that he couldn't remember when he'd last experienced.

Horrified, Natori shut his eyes, exerting every bit of control he possessed to keep their treacherous cargo from escaping. He couldn't do anything about the trembling, though. It felt like every fibre of his being was vibrating with emotions he wasn't sure he could name.

Natori pulled Natsume into another embrace, resting his head on his shoulder so he could shield his face from view. He held on, feeling the smile against his cheek, and the arms that held him back, enclosing him like a circle of protection.

It was enough, for now. More than enough. More than anything he had ever been able to imagine.

   
  
*

  
今さらに山へかへるな郭公  
こゑのかぎりはわがやどになけ

Return not to the mountains now, cuckoo  
Sing in my house as long as you have voice

  
\- _Kokinshū_ , Book III / #151

  
(How I have waited for you to bring the summer, my love; stay with me all the days of your life.)

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. [The thousand-hand Kannon](http://www.emuseum.jp/detail/100154/000/000?mode=detail&d_lang=en&s_lang=en&class=&title=&c_e=&region=&era=&century=&cptype=&owner=&pos=9&num=5).
> 
> 2\. _Kokin wakashū_ ( _Kokinshū_ ): <http://jti.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/kokinshu/intro.html>. My translation and gloss of the selected poem are based on the same things, in modern Japanese, at: <http://wakastream.jp/article/10000381tfgx>
> 
> 3\. For a quasi-follow up of the Natori and Matoba story after this piece, see [Assumption](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12591976). For bonus Yorishima/Natori, see [Interlude](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12273726/chapters/28541628).


End file.
